Thief
by Jonas Grant
Summary: Some years ago, a boy named Gail wound up thrown in the street, forced to rely on raw wits and his growing mastery of the shadows to get by. The years pass, Gail grows older, better, bolder... Greedy. The young thief thinks he's invincible, thinks anything can be his. One night, he goes too far and now, he's got to become the master thief he thought himself to be, or face his fate.
1. What is Hidden

The first time Gail ever took something he did not rightfully own, he was only ten years old. It was a cold night in Lothering, his mother having just succumbed to the fever, and he had eaten nothing for days. Try as he may, the boy was not able to resist. The merchant was not looking and that apple's red sheen still haunted his thoughts to this day. The merchant might have been distracted, but the town's guards were not. They caught the young thief and he publicly received ten lashes for his crime.

Though he could read and write, not to mention that he possessed a quite uncommon aptitude for mathematics and drawing, the boy spent the next three years begging and looking for work, unable to find any for his public punishment remained quite vivid in the memories of the town residents. Ironically, most recalled the event with bitterness, as he was quite possibly the youngest thief to ever be publically punished in such a way.

This event did not teach him honesty, however; it taught him never to get caught.

True, he never stole anything that would raise alarm; a misplaced pendant, a pouch slightly lighter than it had been earlier. He would only steal from traveling merchant as well, only to sell the trinkets to the next caravan that would come through and, sometimes, snip them back again.

Before he turned twenty, the thief had enough gold to purchase a small but cozy house on the outskirt of town. If anyone questioned how he had earned enough money to acquire it, he simply answered with half-truths, explaining that he had become a skilled haggler, selling forgotten items found in the mud or on the Imperial highway, which eventually turned him into an actual merchant. To people who doubted his claims, he would pretend to admit a dirty secret; that bandits sometimes used him as an intermediary to sell their plunder. An outright lie, possibly uglier than the truth, but it kept people from poking around too much.

He was happy. For years, the young man lived a solitary life amidst strangers who looked down upon him, he never once cared for what these folks might think of him, but he never blamed them for his misfortune either. He loved being a thief; those fat merchants never missed what he took, but they would have him flogged should they ever catch him red handed, which added excitement to his job. Like a predator, he would size up his mark, pick the best angle of approach, wait for a moment of weakness, of isolation, and be in and out before anyone was the wiser.

Today, however, is different.

Templars, six of them, had walked in from the north gate during the night, followed by a sturdy cart that pulled a coffin-sized safe. Greed is an ugly thing, but Gail Cervantes was, after all, a thief, and so, leaning against the tavern's rotten walls, happily chewing on a ruby-red apple, he observed the cart for all morning.

The Templars paid no attention to him, for he, unlike more capable thieves, did not dress in leather and dark clothes. On the contrary, he wore a light grey tunic, the likes of which were sold by dozens at the market, and brown linen trousers held by a leather belt with a polished iron buckle which, alone, was worth more than all of the thief's clothes put together.

So he stood there, smiling at pretty lasses, nodding at grim fellows and taking bites out of his apple. From against the wall, at this weak spot, he could hear travelers talking by the fire. Usually, he spied on merchants this way, learning what they carried and which of their possessions they kept close tabs on, but this time, he listened to Templars, men of war, speak of how they could better increase the safety of their cargo.

"Carrying Lyrium by cart is dangerous enough," said the elder, "but this is utter madness! If anyone finds out what we're carrying…"

A younger, yet far more commanding man cut him off, "Nobody will find out anything unless you run your mouth!" This one, whom Gail instantly nicknamed Lord, obviously ruled the others.

The youngest of them could have been a woman, judging from the voice, but may also have been a boy just past puberty, so Gail named him Cub. "Are you sure it's safe to leave the… Cargo outside?"

Lord scoffed, "Why, you'd rather bring it in your room?" Cub's answer was inaudible through the wood, but it made the leader laugh a long and honest belly-laugh, "Oh, the wonders of youth and idealism, how I miss those days… Hang onto that innocence while it last, lad, but do not let it get in the way of your duties."

"Yes, milord…"

"Now, then," went Elder, "Vilmar and Gregor are taking the first watch, Kenan and I will replace them at midnight, do you wish us to open the safe then? The air must be getting foul in there…"

Lord grumbled something, a sentence that took less than a minute, but might have contained crucial informations for the thief. Outside, Gail threw the apple's core aside and, from the large pouch at his side, pulled a roll of parchment and a stick of charcoal.

Elder laughed, but it was a dry, almost bitter laugh, "I dislike it as much as you do, but you told the lad yourself; we can't let our feelings get in the way of our duty."

In the top right corner of the parchment, Gail drew a box with wheels, with two stick figures standing in front of it, guarding the hastily drawn cart as surely as those two Templars guarded theirs.

After a moment of consideration , Lord spoke again, "Then do it, but before you send Vilmar and Gregor away, all four of you will keep watch, let no one near and take no longer than absolutely necessary."

Cervantes therefore added two more stick figures to his drawing. In the bottom right corner of the parchment, he drew a quick map of all the buildings he could see around the cart, judging their heights and the distances between each by comparing the length of their shadows to that of the tallest Templar. Though the charcoal lines were far from straight and the drawings crude at best, Gail quickly had in hand a very accurate map of Lothering's main street, with every fence and billboard included.

On either side of the cart were the tavern and the chapel, both guarded by Templars, so he marked each with an X. Thirty meters separated both buildings, with an arm of Drakon river running between the two. He then slowly drew a line between the two crossed out buildings, over and smiled to himself.

Yes… That would do.

Now with a way to reach the safe unseen, he set his mind on how to open it. Lockpicking is an art, one Gail had little practice with. Picking pockets and crawling around in the shadows were no challenge to him, but the technicalities of high-quality safes eluded him. He could steal a key from one of the Templars, but that would rouse suspicions, not to mention he could not see a keyhole from so far away. He would instead wait for them to open the safe, see how it all worked, and only then would he take one of their keys…

But after thinking about it some more, he decided against that plan. The Templars would surely leave in the morning and if he waited until after midnight to pick their pockets, there would be no crowd to hide him, only the darkness.

The trick would be to let them open the safe and then, somehow, keep it from locking itself again, and doing so in a way that would not alert anyone.

Only then did it dawn upon him that this venture might just be outside his expertise. The wealth contained within this safe were certainly worth the effort, but also were they far beyond anything he had ever taken. This theft would be noticed, this went beyond pickpocketing, beyond burglary… And that fact, more than any monetary gain, restored Gail's resolve. There comes a time in every man's life when he gets a choice; he can either become better, more than he used to be, or wallow in his petty existence, stagnating until time moves on without him.

Pushing himself off the wall, Cervantes picked up a sack of groceries from the floor, fruits, dried meat and ale, and walked straight ahead, crossing a few familiar faces whom he remembered only for their cruel words and accusations. He ignored the locals and they ignored him right back, not even bothering to move out of his way as he crossed the stone bridge. Now, thievery does not call for physical might and Gail would likely have lost an arm wrestling match with the weakest peasant out there, but he was nimble enough to slip through the crowd like a salmon swimming upstream.

He lacked the muscles of a farm worker, but also the belly of a merchant. Granted, too much ale and not enough exercise had made him as flat as a board, but he hardly cared about that, his appearance being the last thing on his mind, as evidenced by the patches of stubbles on his face and his dishevelled haircut. When he approached the cart, neither of the Templars perceived him as a threat, but they still asked him his business, as he just stood there, a few feet from them, smiling like an idiot.

"Ah, yes!" He spoke, clearing his throat, "I… Uh… I used to be… The Chantry helped me when I was in a bad spot…" He stopped there, looked at his bag, and when he looked up saw the Templars exchanging puzzled glances. "You men are stuck here, guarding a box…" He took a step forward and held up the provisions, "I figured you could use some food."

It was expensive stuff, stolen from a recently departed merchant from Redcliff. The ale in particular caught the warrior's attention and, gasping, he showed it to his companion. Neither saw the thief's hand dive into a thick leather sack hanging to the Templar's waist. Sure enough, he found the key in a tiny pouch sewn inside the bag. Even the Chantry's guardians were naïve enough to believe secret pockets to actually be an efficient way of warding off thieves.

"Is this what I think it is?" Spoke the now slightly lighter man, sceptical.

The other turned to Gail with a frown on his face. "Where in Andraste's name did you find Dwarven Ale in these parts?"

To which the thief shrugged, "Got a good deal… By that I mean the fool thinks I gave him a fair price for it."

They laughed at that, though the men decided not to drink as long as they were on watch. They took the food, however, and spent a few minutes trading jokes with Cervantes before he took his leave.

It might have cost him today's catch, but he got the key. Home is where he went next. There, he went straight for his poorly supplied cellar and picked an aged and battered clay pot, filled with nothing but spiders.

The pot, about knee high, broke into four fragments, like a blooming flower, when Gail threw it on the kitchen's floor. He took the smallest fragment, about as tall and wide as his head, and dropped it in a wooden bowl, where, using another bowl, he began grinding the clay, breaking it into finger-sized chunks at first, then into pebbles, until the bowl was chockfull of fine brown powder, packed so tight he could hold the bowl sideways and not a grain would fall.

He repeated the operation with another shard of clay and, once he had two bowls filled with rust-colored powder, the thief threw the best wood he had into the oven, feeding the fire far more than was necessary and using up a week's worth of firewood. Eventually, the heat grew almost unbearable, as though the air itself was sweating, and Cervantes decided it would do.

Throwing some copper cutlery in an iron cup, which he held by bracing a fire poker into its handle, he sat by the fire and, holding the cup in the heart of the furnace, watched copper grow white and bend like wax in the sun. Some of it fell out of the cup, but not much and he eventually propped the cup between two flat logs.

Back at the table, Gail pulled the Templar's steel key from his pocket and set it down in one of the bowls. The thing glistened in his home's dim light, pure white in the darkness._ Even their keys are arrogant!_ Thought the thief, pushing hard until it no longer protruded from the clay. Using a kitchen knife, Cervantes carved a notch into the bowl's rim and, with a wooden spatula's handle, dug a trench into the clay, one which led from the key's round end to the indentation in the bowl. In that groove, he pressed the spatula's handle and covered it all with the second bowl, pushing the almost circular confection as hard as he could. The heat and intense focus made his hands slippery, his limbs heavy, but Cervanted focused on his task without complaining, for he had no one to complain to anyway.

After a moment, he took the bowls apart and removed the key. Both surfaces now had mirror images of the key at their centers, as well as that of the spatula, which he also removed. Carefully, the thief put the bowls back together. He looked around for some string, but found nothing of the sort and fell back on using his belt to hold the device together.

In the furnace, copper and iron now glowed white and yellow as fire embraced the cup and its content. When Gail pulled it out, the copper was actually boiling.

It sputtered and bubbled and he carefully bend the cup over the wooden bowls. Liquid metal leapt from its recipient and dripped along the wood searing, steaming and hissing on its way down until Gail corrected it's position and began pouring it straight down that notch into the bowl's side. The spill unfortunately had enough life left in it to bite into Gail's leather belt, which filled the room with a chemical stench that banded with the heat to make Cervantes' home an unbearable environment.

Most of the day had passed by then, leaving the thief with six hours until midnight. The copper key he pulled from his makeshift smelter still needed a lot of work, seams and irregularities plaguing its shaft. Armed with a file and the patience of a man used to careful planning, Cervantes worked for hours. Every time he thought the result satisfying, he would look back to the original key and spot over a dozen new imperfections in the copper one. So paranoid to get a perfect reproduction that, when he finally deemed his work finished, there was barely an hour left for him to put his plan in motion.

He rubbed his tunic in charcoal, smeared his face with the substance as well, grabbed his hunting bow and three arrows, and, finally, threw his whole bucket of charcoal in the fire, only to hastily shut the furnace's lid. This would create a lot of smoke. His house was on the south-east edge of town and the Chapel in the north-east part, close to the center. The summer wind would bring this thick fog above most of Lothering, masking moon and stars like storm clouds.

Gail moved silently, staying in the shadows and away from the road. There were plenty of back alleys in Lothering and he knew them all. The one he followed took him just across the street from the tavern. To his right, past the bridge, shone an unusual amount of torches. He would be spotted instantly if he tried to cross there, and swimming would make far too much noise. Instead, Cervantes crossed the street, bent over so low he might as well have been walking on all four, and running so fast he did need to use his hand on one occasion, lest he trip on his own feet.

He did not enter the building, no one must know he was even out of his home that night, but instead dragged himself up the wall, holding onto any protruding beam and window frames he could find.

His fingers kept slipping on the crude wood and his thin arms struggled to carry him up, but the thief's determination never faltered. All things considered, this whole adventure should have terrified him; a reasonable man, as he often thought himself to be, would have been far too scared of possible repercussions to try any such heist, but Gail, at that time, thought himself to be quite the master thief… Of course, the merchants that made up his usual preys were hardly on the level of Templars, but one who has never known defeat cannot sense its approach and Gail felt only confidence as he tugged hard on old Vernon's clothesline, hung over the street, between the man's house and the tavern.

Rolling it at his feet, Gail attached the rope to an arrow's shaft and nocked it into the tired string. The bow was old, made of second-rate wood and a stolen bow string that had probably seen more winters than its current owner. Across the river, the chapel's roof was no more than a dark silhouette against the horizon, but Gail knew a wooden beam ran along the building's spine, and so aimed five meters above the dark shape, pulled on the string until it caressed his cheek, and released the arrow.

It sailed rather lazily over the river, pulling the rope in its wake, and dug itself straight into the chapel's bell tower, more than twelve feet from where Cervantes had been aiming. Still, he yanked the cable twice, to test its reliability, and both times it became tense as a bowstring.

Instead of shooting an arrow at his feet, as was his first thought, Gail tied his end of the rope to the shaft of another arrow, then wrapped the cord around the tavern's chimney once and slid the arrow under the tense rope, propping it's head against the roof so that as long as the cord remained tense, the arrow would be upright.

With less than twenty minutes to midnight, Gail wrapped his legs around the rope, gripped it with both hands and, using only his arms, slid himself all the way across the river and over the cart. The smoke coming from his house did more than smother the stars, it tried to suffocate him as well whenever the wind died down. It burned his lungs, stung his eyes and tickled his nostrils, but Gail could not afford to cough, sneeze or even close his eyes, keeping them on the two Templars, still on watch before their safe.

It felt as though every muscle in the thief's body ached from holding back what would no doubt be a thundering fit of coughing and sneezing. His eyes swollen and drenched in tears, he blindly reached into his pocket and pulled out the Templar's shiny metal key. He would have thought up a better way of returning it discreetly, but at that exact moment, a shift in the wind threatened to shift his weight sideways, which would have been rather inconsequential, seeing as his legs were wrapped tight around the rope, but instinct took over and Gail dropped the key to hold himself with both hands. When he looked down, the thief saw that the key had bounced off the provision sack he'd brought the Templars and fallen in the mud, just behind the tall one's boot.

Neither noticed a thing and Cervantes crawled the rest of the way, to the Chapel, when he propped himself between the roof and bell tower, where he could clearly see his goal and anyone coming from the tavern.

The smoke no longer stung his eyes, but he still struggled to keep them open. It felt as though fire ants were crawling into his skull, devouring his ocular globes from within.

There were tears running down his face now, ruining his camouflage. He did not wipe them, as it would only make things worse.

Far off, past the fog that had furtively chewed the edge of his vision, Gail spotted movement, likely coming from the tavern, though he only obtained confirmation when two Templars crossed the stone bridge, chatting amongst themselves softly. One was tall and thin while the other was small and broad; Cub and Elder. Elder greeted the two men currently on guard by pounding his chest, gesture they returned. He told them about Lord's order to open the safe for a few minutes and both men went from utterly bored to fully ready for a fight. One even put a hand on his sword, though he stepped away to let Elder climb onto the cart and unlock the safe. The other would have done the same, had he not been busy searching for his own key, which he found, with immense relief, in the mud at his feet.

It took all of the thief's resolve to keep both eyes open and watch as Elder spinned the key two full rotations to the right, pushed, turned it left at a ninety degrees angle, pulled and turned it left once more until it reached its original position. Only then did the door glide outward on perfectly oiled hinges. Gail, an hairs breadth from clawing his own eyes out, did not see anything for the next minute, too busy blinking and scowling at the sky.

At last, the pain subsided and he could look down once more; the Templars were all glaring at the safe, as though they expected its content to try and kill them, though Gail could not see it with his swollen eyes. Elder told them to watch the perimeter as well and two of them, the short one and Cub, gladly turned away.

Nothing relevant happened, though Cervantes could feel the Templars' dark mood from his perch, even after they closed the safe and the previous guard had left, they remained insecure. This gave pause to the young thief.

What could they be carrying in there? He'd heard much about the horrors inherent to the Fade, and how a Templar's duty is to fight such monstrosities. Could the thing in that box be using him? Luring thieves into trying to free it? That would explain the Templars' paranoia… No, they would have warned people… Maker, they would surely not have brought such a thing in Lothering, or any population center, if it could manipulate the minds of others…

Now more than ever, Cervantes felt compelled to open that safe. Not just out of greed, however, but also out of curiosity.

This time, the smoke did not assail him as he crept like a rat along the wire.

Cub and Elder were discussing the Chant of Light, opposing Cub's literal view to Elder's more metaphorical approach to it. Neither heard a thing when a black figure detached itself from the night and landed softly atop the safe, where it crouched like a frog for a moment, observing the bickering men who backs were turned.

Gail's already strained muscles jerked like rusted hinges as he slowly lowered himself onto the wagon. He had a pair of arrows left, but never thought of using them to kill the Templars. Thievery is one thing, murder is another altogether and Cervantes had never harmed another individual in his life, the very thought of someone being hurt by his fault would certainly have appalled him…

In complete silence, he slid the copper key in the lock and repeated the same combination as he had seen Elder perform. The lock made the faintest sound as it freed the heavy iron door. Using his foot to hold some of the door's weight, Gail opened it with the utmost care. His heart pounded so hard in his ears he feared the Templars might hear it, but dared not look back.

Inside the coffin-shaped safe, he found the statue of an elf woman, a Dalish, judging from the tattoos. She a pale grey in the darkness, eyes closed, features twisted in a grimace of annoyance and hatred…

How was he to move this statue out without the Templars noticing? A dozen solutions floated in the thief's mind, but were all blown away as the woman opened her eyes with a sigh.

Not a statue. In the dark, Gail had mistaken the elf's pale complexion with actual stone… The Templars were carrying a live Dalish elf in an iron box. She gave him a suspicion glance, mouth opening to ask a question, but spotted the bickering Templars and understood the situation faster than Cervantes could.

The elf smiled and seemed to hold back a delighted squeal, but Gail only looked, stepping out of the way when the elf decided to brush past him. Her graceful steps were quiet as a butterfly's wings as she stepped onto the cart, giving Gail a quick kiss on his dirtied cheek before running off in the darkness, away from the guards and towards the river.

Still unable to comprehend what had just transpired, Gail climbed back onto the safe, where he jumped on the rope and crawled back towards the tavern.


	2. Can be Found

**A/N: DaLintyMan: Dragon Age... It's like Skyrim, but with... Less dragons, actually... And no orcs... And only one race of elves... And actual dwarves... Actually, it's not at all like skyrim.**

**Apollo Wings: Glad you think so! And I do intend to continue.**

Gail dared not step off the rooftops now. If he was found wandering the streets at this hour, it would be noticed, especially given the state of his clothes and face, so he leapt over the gap to Old Vernon's house. Three horses, nose to tail, could fit in the street's length, two more would have been necessary to fill the space between Vernon's place and the tavern. Quick and agile as he may be, Gail never had a chance of even coming close to clearing that jump, a fact which struck him about as hard as that balcony Vernon had built over his porch.

Cervantes' graceless landing sent shockwaves up his knees and into his spine, as there was no room for him to soften the shock with a roll and he knew no other way to land discreetly.

Somebody stirred inside the house, speaking excitedly, and Gail leapt above the balcony's flimsy door, onto the roof, just as the former slid inward to led an half naked old man through.

Vernon, half blind and fully senile, failed to notice Cervantes' shoes on either side of his head and continued on to the balustrade, where he proceeded to yell at the tavern itself.

This rooftop, unlike the tavern, had no flat parts except for the central beam, though Gail could not walk on that. Indeed, the smoke from his house only covered the north-eastern part of town. In relation to the Templars, Vernon's house stood in the south-west. Anyone running along the highest point of that house's roof would be a stark silhouette against the night sky.

Instead, Gail grabbed the edge of that beam, the one across from the side where he hung, and hugged the roof's slope as closely as he could, using his legs only to inch his lower body forward.

Before he could cross Vernon's house, however, Gail distinctly heard Elder roaring about an Apostate.

_Out of time._

Soon, the Chantry's warriors would fill Lothering's street, scouring every inch of the city for… The Apostate? Realization hit Gail once more, but this time it was a liberating sensation. Smiling, he released his grip and immediately slid down Vernon's roof until his toes hit the rain gutter. There, Gail scooped down to grab the gutter with both hands and carefully lowered his legs over the edge until his whole body dangled above the muddied alley, three meters beneath. With a sigh, the thief once again let go and this time landed with a perfect roll that saw him drenched in muck and hopefully not too much manure.

By then, the whole town was shaking itself awake, cries of alarm and confusion echoing from every direction. People knew something was up, but none could tell what.

Wiping the remaining coal from his face, Cervantes ran out of the alleyway with his bow in hand. He did not run towards home, but instead made for the tavern, where he could hear the most agitation.

Sure enough, all of the Templars were all awake, all six of them, and Lord distributed orders with all the authority and decisiveness one can muster when wearing nothing but trousers, with their bare foot plunged deep within a misplace cow pie. They all turned to Cervantes when he stopped running, out of breath… Oh no.

The copper key was still in his pocket.

That his face grew a ghostly white only added credibility to his words, "I heard apostate!" He spoke, "Where?! Is anyone injured?"

At that precise moment, Gail realized that, should he grow tired of thievery, he would likely make for a tremendous actor, for the Templars immediately included him, with his battered bow and two arrows, in their search pattern.

"Not yet, but we must find her at once!" Went Lord, motioning to Elder and Cub as more villagers poured in from their homes as well as the tavern, "Go with these two and follow the river, her tracks lead this way!" And both fully armoured Templars took off, running so fast Gail could barely keep up, despite his own outfit being virtually weightless. Before they were out of earshot, Gail managed to hear Lord give a rather accurate description of the Dalish elf to his steadily growing audience.

Before the young thief could understand how or why, he was following a pair of Templars way past Lothering's outskirt. The key wiggled in his pocket and he thought more than once about throwing it away, while the other two were focused on the elf's tracks, but every time he decided to do so, his stomach churned and his blood ran cold at the thought that, through a bout of horrible luck, one of the warriors would hear, or happen to turn around at just the wrong time.

Fear had finally caught up with Gail Cervantes, and he cursed himself and everything around him, down to the last blade of grass, for his foolishness.

Someone would search his house, see the molten copper and ground clay, and that someone would ask him one question: _what do you have in your pocket_?

The Templars would know, as soon as they saw the copper key, and he would be burned at the stake. He could already feel the inferno licking his legs, melting his skin, cooking his eyes…

Cub turned around at that moment. Gail thought he must have been a truly disturbing sight, covered in coal and mud, eyes wide with terror and most likely his lips were quivering as well.

Cub only smiled, "Take heart, my good man! The Apostate's magic is no match for us Templars, you are in good hands."

Gail only shook his head and joined Elder. The man was on a knee, frowning at tracks that made no sense. While a thief before anything else, Cervantes was not above poaching when merchants grew scarce. His wilderness survival skills were limited to tracking and cooking, however. He owned a bow solely for self-defence and exploited the snares of other villagers most of the time, so his tracking skills applied both to animals and to people who thought themselves crafty woodsmen.

"These make any sense to you?" Asked Elder, perplex. The flickering light of his torch reminded the thief of what would await him should he be caught, so he called upon all of his experience.

Cervantes did understand some of the tracks; the Apostate had stopped, gone back a few steps, changed her mind again, spun around in circles then vanished. Judging by the hole in the sand, ten paces ahead, and the thin trenches snaking around, the elf had stolen a boat, probably a smuggler's raft anchored here for the night, or an illegal fisherman's boat. Both commonplace, so close to the wilderness.

"Just because I have a bow doesn't mean I'm a Ranger, you know…" Gail trailed off, then added, "Could your Apostate have friends… With a boat? Friends that would know where to find her?" This was a deformation of the truth, but not a lie. If the Templars thought other elves had helped the Apostate, they would not suspect a local.

Cub and Elder traded a worried glance, then the latter nodded, "It's possible…Anything else you can tell us?"

Gail nodded decisively, "Yes; I'm cold, I'm tired and I'm scared."

None of those were lies. The night wind seeped into his wet clothes, chilling him to the bones as surely as the fear of being caught did. Both these things, coupled with the excruciating efforts his heist had required, made him more exhausted than he'd ever been.

The two Templars said nothing and searched the area thoroughly, hoping to find evidences of the apostate's next destination, or the identity of her rescuers. Gail did the same, albeit without much conviction. Searching for answers you already know to a question as hollow as the answer, for both are false, is tedious business, but he played his part for as long as needed. Called the Templars' attention to every human tracks he found, no matter how large and old they were.

All Gail really knew about tracking was footsteps, he could guess a person's gender, bulk, speed and confidence, as well as how many days old the tracks were. These, as impressive as they might seem to men of war such as Elder and Cub, were but the basics of tracking… Indeed, Cervantes knew some crafty woodsmen who could throw one glance at a prairie and tell you, with remarkable accuracy, how many burrows it counted, where they were, what animals had dug them and where in the tall grasses the denizens of these lairs more often passed through.

Once, he'd even seen a sellsword hunt an escaped criminal. The man had been able to determine what his quarry had eaten the day prior, his physical condition, armament and injuries solely by looking a a footprint and a patch of urine on the side of the road.

Cervantes considered himself lucky if he could recognize a footprint from a dried puddle, and that was in the sand, on grass, like the ones spreading beyond the thin stretches of beach on either side of the river, Gail was as clueless as a blind hedgehog.

Furthermore, Elder had their only torch; an expensive model, with an oil reservoir on the end of its shaft and a thick wick, like a massive candle. It sputtered out many hours into the night, with many more left before dawn, and the Templars insisted to continue the search nonetheless.

They both wore heavy steel armours, clanking and shining like kitchens in the moonlight. The things certainly seemed warm, but Cervantes did not envy them in the least; if they had seemed unhampered by the massive garments earlier, their clumsiness was now made obvious by the absence of light.

Few have ever experienced true obscurity, so thick it is as though the darkness tries to smother all those trapped within, to swallow reality itself and replace it by a clownish mockery of exaggerated textures, sounds and distances. Gail's childhood, spent hiding in cellars, attics and even caves, had seen him accustomed to the loss of sight. Man is not meant to function without his eyes, but can use his other senses to compensate for a sudden darkness, while his vision adjusts to the new environment.

With their heavy armour and the thick helmets wrapped around their skulls, neither Cub nor Elder could hear the wind rustling the tall grass around them, nor feel any distinction between the residual warmth radiated by the sand and the damp heat given off by humus from the grass.

They tripped on rocks, stepped in the river, knelt as low as their plates would allow, only to curse as the speck they were scrutinizing so closely revealed itself to be their own tracks.

This farce went on until, from over a low hill across the river, the first rays of dawn showed themselves, casting an array of pastel colours into the dark sky. These chewed at the speckled dome of night until only the crescent moon remained, surrounded by orange and purple.

Cub, Elder and Gail finally returned to town, crossing within an hour what had taken them the whole night to search. They arrived at Lothering in time to see Lord, still in front of the tavern, with a crowd steadily dispersing around him, as though he had just finished giving a speech.

He saw them, dragging their feet through the front gate, and met them halfway. He now wore full armour and kept a hand on his jeweled sword's pommel, as though expecting trouble.

The Templars greeted each other by pounding a fist to their chests, as Gail had seen Elder do during the night, and Lord immediately focused his attention on the thief.

"Are you Ser Cervantes?" He thundered, dark eyes scrutinizing Gail's features from under the rims of a thick steel helm.

Glancing around, Cervantes noticed multiple villagers looking at the scene from afar, as though expecting this whole situation to end with a fight. "That I am, Milord." Spoke the young thief, as affably as he could, in spite of his aching limbs and swollen eyes.

"Many here think you had a hand in this." Hammered the Templar, not bothering with niceties or any sort of tact, "What say you in your defence?"

Indignation, fear, incomprehension and amusement all rushed into Gail's mind, but he settled for anger. "Nothing!" He barked, though his voice lacked the commanding tone of the Templar, "There is nothing to say anymore! It was all said twelve years ago, when the people of Lothering decided an _orphan _should receive _ten lashes_ for stealin an _apple!_" This was no act. He realized that at the same time as everyone else who heard. For years, he'd convinced himself he held no resentment towards the people of Lothering… He had been lying to himself.

Standing in the middle of the road, covered in mud, manure, coal and sweat, his shoes filled with mud and sand from the river, he told everyone, Lord and every inhabitant of Lothering, what he truly thought, "I hear there are places where ten lashes is what you get for turning back a starving infant! Then, years later, Old Vernon misplaces his axe, he comes to me, A priceless vase goes missing from the chantry, everyone accuses me! Crops go bad? It's Gail's fault! Bandits are getting bold? Gail must have something to do with it! An apostate turns up in town, it's all Cervantes' fault!" Except for Lord, nobody in town dared look him in the eyes.

To his credit, the Templar did not show any sign of impatience or anger as Gail yelled at the whole town. Though a bit brusque at time, the Templar leader tried to be understanding and just, and clearly, this boy had suffered many injustices in his short life.

His men had mentioned a local villager giving them supplies, the day before, and Cervantes matched the description. When Lord brought it up, Gail saw no point in denying it.

"Yes, though this town hates me and won't buy or sell anything I've so much as looked at, I try to stay in good standing with travellers…" He smiled, but his eyes were sad, "A man needs to remind himself he's human, even though everyone disagrees… _Especially_ when everyone disagrees…"

Lord nodded once at that, then questioned Elder, "He has been with you the whole time you were out there?"

"Yes, we followed the Apostate's tracks, she escaped on a boat, according to our friend here, it's possible she had accomplices waiting for her."

With another short nod, Lord turned back to Gail, "Ser Cervantes, you have my apologies…"

Instantly, the thief felt himself blush in embarrassment. He would have preferred the Templar would just yell back at him, his sudden amiability made the boy feel like the bad guy in this story, which, all things considered, he was. "No need to… I got carried away, you were justified in questioning me…" And before he could stop himself, Cervantes added, "I would not hold it against you if you wish to search my house…"

Lord, a grizzled, battle scarred mountain of a man, cringed at those words.

"Yes… About that."

Only then did Gail, in his tired state, notice the strong smell of smoke in the air, reminiscent of those summer feasts, when fires would rise as tall as a house.


	3. What is Locked

**A/N: Am I the only one to think Dwarven women are just adorable in DA:O? Just a thought, in most other settings, when someone asks "Why don't we see any dwarven women?" writers answer, "You have."**

**Apollo Wings: 9:28 Dragon. Two years before the Blight. The year Leliana became a cloistered sister. **

The ashes still glowed in the morning light, the white smoke mixing the ambers' crimson glow with the purple tinge of dawn. This would have been a beautiful sight, had it not been Gail's house.

The house could burn for all he cared, but the things inside…

When Cervantes' mother was alive, she had a single goal, a simple, almost innocent wish; she wanted to teach architecture, which she had learned from Qunari masons, Elven carpenters and Orlaisian inventors, to the people of Ferelden. An architect herself, the one behind the construction of Bann Teagan's inner keep, she'd amassed thirty years of studies and travels, all neatly inscribed into fifty books, which Gail had protected through rain and storms for twelve years now, reading and re-reading them in lieu of bed time stories.

Gail fell to his knees amongst the ashes. He'd learned everything there was to know from the books, enough that he could likely have written simplified versions of each, but they would be his handwriting, the fruits of his mind.

In one night, all he had left of his mother had been destroyed, all because he'd wanted more, because he failed to think further that raw profit.

You don't stoke a fire as he'd done and just leave, expecting beyond common sense that nothing bad will happen…

The pain shot through his arm before he even realized he'd punched the ashes.

"I'm sorry, mother…" He whispered, picturing to himself the distress this scene would have caused to the poor woman, were she still alive… Her legacy, unique and brilliant mathematical formulas, construction techniques and mapping methods, forever lost.

The Templars decided there and then, seeing the broken boy cry amongst the ashes of his life, that he had nothing to do with the elf's escape. As much as they sympathized with the poor man's loss, which none of them could actually begin to understand, they had an apostate to catch and so all but Lord himself left Gail to his stupefied grief.

The armoured man kneeled before the young thief, shaking his head slowly, "From what the others told me, you bought this house yourself, after years of living in the street, is that right?"

Gail nodded slowly. He appreciated the concern, but still dearly dreaded being burned at the stake and, so, would have felt a lot better if the Templar leader would just leave him alone.

"Why apologise to your mother, then? Maybe you acquired your wealth legitimately, maybe you… Bent rules, it makes no difference, she should be proud you did so well for yourself."

The thought of lying never crossed Cervantes' mind, he was mad, at himself more than anything else, mad that he'd gotten greedy, mad that he'd been careless and, more than anything, he was furious at himself for wanting to take it out on the Templar, so he spilled it all… Not the heist, that secret would follow him to the grave if he could help it, he told Lord about his mother's work and how fanatically Gail had tried to continue it, ending his half-coherent speech with, "…and now it's all gone! Even if I spend years trying to remember every detail, I'll never rebuild my mother's library, I will never be able to teach what she knew… This is all there was left of her, her only legacy, now it's gone…"

Lord looked around himself, a scowl twisting his traits, but there was no one in sight. The townsfolk had been scurrying around the house all night, trying to contain the fire, to keep it from spreading, and once the house had finished burning, they all left, either to look for the elf or to cower in their houses.

Not a single soul in this town cared about Gail's distress, though he had been the first to take up arms for its defence. That thought sickened Lord greatly, "Don't be ridiculous, boy." He answered, his voice stern as always, "There's one thing of her left in this world…" He nodded towards Gail, making his thought clear, "Her… Books? They're gone, but you're not. It may not be what she would have wanted, but her legacy is in your hands now, you're the one who'll dictate whether or not she's brought some good to this world."

Gail thanked the Templar for his words, though they ringed hollow. He just wanted to be left alone, and Lord obliged, walking off to look for signs of the escaped captive.

With no money, nowhere to stay, no friends and his spirit crushed, Gail could see no way out of this mess. The Templars might have dismissed him as a suspect, but Lothering's people would not. He would be treated as a leper, nobody would even talk to him anymore. Travellers would be warned to stay away and the very thought of seeking charity caused a bitter laugh to escape the thief's lips.

He could not reach another town on foot, at least not without food or some actual knowledge of woodland survival. Never before had Cervantes found himself so helpless. He sat there, watching the smoke die down as the sun climbed ever higher in the sky, and reflected hard on a way to get himself out of this predicament.

That is how Bethany Hawke, a sixteen years old apostate living with her family on the outskirt of town, found him. He hardly looked like an evil mastermind, though she did describe a wide circle to see him from the front. There, she confirmed his lack of evil mustache and approached him with confidence.

"Hello! Mister Cervantes?" Chirped the young Hawke, snapping the thief out of his torpor.

He scrutinized her face for a moment before talking, "You are Leandra's daughter? Last time I saw you, you were hitting your brother across the head with a stick…"

That got a smile out of Bethany, "He started it." She threw a glance around, confirming that nobody was looking at them, and produced something from her sleeve. "Here, that's from a friend."

Gail took the bronze cylinder and swiftly observed it from every angle. Both ends of the finger-sized tube were circular, polished to a golden sheen except for one, which had tiny grooves running along the rim.

"I can't say I recall having any friends… Ever." Now might not have been the time to be picky about this sort of things, but carelessness had gotten him into this mess to begin with, he would let himself get dragged deeper.

Bethany only extended her right hand, holding her palm out for Gail to see. A blue flame danced between the girl's fingers, casting unnatural shadows across her juvenile traits. The apostate's smile went from sweet and innocent to cynical and terrifying. "You made a lot tonight." Was all she told him before leaving.

The grooved top came loose after a single twist. Within the cylinder, Cervantes found a tightly rolled piece of paper.

_Dalish in your debt_

_Will repay you_

_But need help_

_Meet us in ruins_

_Ostagar_

_Before sun sets_

An odd sense of determination flooded Gail's mind and body, a wave of warmth that got him off his knees as swiftly as if a giant hand had swept him up.

Regret melted in this warmth, replaced by that same sense of purpose that had driven him forward the night prior. He'd wanted to become more, to move forward. Now that all ties to his old life were severed, not a single thing in this world had the power to hold him back. A bow, two arrows and a copper key were all Gail carried with him when he left Lothering. The imperial highway would lead him straight to Ostagar, quickly and as safely as possible.

Throughout the handful of hours it would take him to reach the ruins, Gail mentally reviewed all he remembered of Evina Cervantes' work and found with delight that it had all been burned in his memory with as much certainty as his own name. What the Dalish might want his help with, he did not know, and he was indeed curious as to how his skills would fit into it, but it did not bother him overmuch.

Which, all things considered, might have been a side-effect of the exhausting night he had gone through.

He reached the ruins before nightfall, though with precious little time to spare and feeling as though he had a fully armoured dwarf riding on his shoulders. He walked in expecting some grandiose set up, with archers coming out of every nook and crannies. Instead, he found that woman from the safe, sitting on a toppled pillar alongside almost twenty men and women of various age and nationalities, though most were city elves.

"There he is!" Called the elf, happily, "I told you he would come!" The crowd cheered and Gail just looked around, confused.

She bounced off the stone and trotted up to the thief, embracing him like an old friend. All around them, the crowd gathered, chatting among themselves about their odds of success and speculating about Cervantes' motivations.

"Now, can someone tell me what is going on?"

The elf pulled away, still smiling, and nodded energetically. Gail was stunned, he had never seen an elf up close before. She looked so delicate, her wide green eyes, freckled cheeks and pouting pink lips seemed gave her sharp features an impression of surrealism that the thief had only ever seen in exaggerated drawing from excellent artists. Never, as far as he could recall, had Cervantes seen such beauty, "Right," went the elf, oblivious to Gail's shock, "You probably don't know a quarter of the story… Come sit with us, friend, it is quite the tale!"

And he had very little choice in the matter, the crowd pressing him forward after the elf until they were all sitting on the pillar, like birds on a fence.

Their story began in Orlais, a decade prior, but Gail told them to skip the prelude and get to the relevant part. In short, the elf part of an initiative, originally endorsed by the Dalish clans, to free mages from the Circle. They had been met with success at first, being able to steal the phylacteries from Templars sent to hunt down the escaped mages, until a year ago, when the Chantry, now aware of their activities, increased its security measures by drawing more blood from every mage, enough to fill multiple phylacteries. Stealing one pendant from a patrol of heavily armed men is one thing, doing it over and over again, for who knows how long, is quite another. A vast majority of Dalish clans pulled their support from this scheme when the death toll began to soar, leaving the already struggling effort to fend for itself.

At that point in the story, night was well settled in and a man, an Orlaisian, left to gather some dry wood. They all took turns telling their part of the story, though Gail, exhausted beyond his usual patience, silently wished they would just get on with it. Yet he listened, if only because the elven apostate's sparkling green eyes kept him enthralled and he, having been along most of his life, entertained the thought that maybe she could… Well, not fall in love, the young thief had nothing of a romantic, or so he told himself, deciding that his interest to her revolved around those eyes and that cleavage.

Once the Orlesian got the fire going and they were once more able to see everyone, the story began moving forward once more.

The elf, Isrill, had been captured in Redcliff after trying to infiltrate The Tower of the Circle of Magi. All of the individuals gathered around them were mages whom she'd successfully liberated in a prior raid, but Orlais' Circle of Magi would soon send their phylacteries to Ferelden's Tower, and, at that moment, Templars would be on the hunt for them, spread across the country, each with a bit of blood and the potential to have them all made Tranquil.

Gail stopped them at that point, "You think I am going to break into the most secured structure in Ferelden?" He was going to continue, make a point somewhere later in the sentence, but stopped there, for, after consideration, that should have been enough.

A cacophony of accusations, pleas and threats flew his way, but Isrill quieted them all with a harsh glare.

"It is dangerous, and whatever your reasons for freeing me, you took more risks than anyone could reasonably ask of you." She inched closer, taking his hand in hers, her skin soft as the silk lining a merchant's pocket, "But you would not be doing this alone, and you will be rewarded…"

The elf's thumb rubbing the back of his hand sent chills down Gail's spine, electrifying every bone in his body, though he did his best to hide it, "I'm a thief," he pleaded, "and not even a good one, there has to be more… _qualified_ individuals out there!"

Isrill nodded, "I agree, there must be, but these people are not easy to find, untrustworthy and expensive. I looked into your eyes, Gail…" He almost fainted from the way she whispered his name, "You are a good man, and there is time for you to learn. The Dalish will teach you how our centuries honed infiltration technique, _I _will _personally _teach you how we elves go about unseen, a thing we have never taught a _Shemlen_, if only you agree to help me save these mages."

The prospect of spending more time with Isrill, _personal_ time, as she put it, sufficed in making up Gail's mind, for, despite being brilliant in his own right, Cervantes remained a twenty-two years old young man and a naive one at that. Still, he tried to convince himself his reasons for accepting had nothing to do with the beautiful elf woman, that, after all, he would be fed and given proper clothes while he travelled with the Dalish, and maybe he could pinch a few shiny objects in that tower while he was up there.

"I agree, but on one condition."

"Anything you want." Once again, the elf's words gave him goose bumps.

"You are an uncharacteristically striking woman and obviously know how to use it to your advantage…" There were a few chuckles along the stone pillar, some remarking that the young thief might not be so dumb after all.

"Yes?"

"But you don't need to dangle a carrot in front of me like I'm a donkey, I know it is well out of my reach…" Regretfully, he pulled his hand out of her warm grip and stood up. Isrill looked so beautiful in the warm glow of the campfire, it made every inch of his soul ache, "Don't promise a thief something you're not ready to give up, it can never end well."

Though this was an empty threat, it wiped the smiles off everyone's faces. Shock, at the words and the change of mood, had been his goal, one he achieved; they all dropped the masks for a moment, showing their true selves in this moment of confusion.

Terrified, lost and angry, the lot of them. Some were infuriated by his words, others were terrified, but these two states of minds could be read on all their faces. These people were unstable, dangerous. Cornered.

But Isrill, she showed no fear. The burning fire that shone on her face paled in comparison to the one that burned within. This woman was willing to sacrifice everything, her life, theirs and his, to reach her goal, whatever that might be. Her eyes dug into him like spears. "What is your condition, then? That I stay away from you? Act coldly around you? What is it you want of me?"

"Just don't insult my intelligence. If I were that easy to sway, I would not be the right man for the job."

The elf found her smile again, "So, you will take the job?"

He nodded with finality, proud of himself for having called Isrill out on her little game. Only, then, she got up as well and brought her head so close to him their noses brushed together, which turned Gail's legs to jelly, she seemed unaffected and whispered in his ear, "Then let me tell you this; we Dalish don't have donkeys, we have Halla, and they can do _whatever they please._" The last words earned her a tiny whimper from the bottom of Gail's throated, which she interpreted as the sign of her victory.

Stepping away to a more comfortable distance, she gave him the once over, "You look like you need some rest... Jean!" The Orlesian got up as well, and she spoke to him in his native language, "_Prépare le camps, il est sur le point de tomber raide mort. __On repart demain à l'aube… Et envoie un message à Athenril, dit lui qu'on va réessayer."_

Which Gail, though he kept that quiet, easily understood.

_Prepare the camp, he's about to fall over dead. We leave tomorrow at dawn... And send a message to Athenril, tell him we're going to try again._


	4. Can Be Opened

**A/N: Apollo Wings: At this point in the story, the reader is not supposed to really like Gail, relate to him at most, but that's it, he's really done nothing special so far... Even he doesn't really know who he is and what he wants from life.**

Gail awoke in that state of extreme clarity one gets when their mind is not yet burdened by conscious thoughts. He smelled spices of an unknown kind, wood varnished with vegetal essences, which diffused an aroma halfway between fresh sap and sawdust. There were voices in the distance, speaking a language Gail had not been as adamant to learn, unlike the others, for he never expected he would need to know Dalish. His mother had insisted he speak as many languages as possible; Fereldan, because it was the country which they lived in, Antivan, because they were originally from Antiva, as made evident by the surname Cervantes, Orlesian, because it was the language scholars across Thedas privileged when publishing their work, and Qunari, because speaking their language and being somewhat aware of their culture could go a long way into earning a Qunari's respect, which, itself, could get you a long way towards not being dead.

So, elven spoken language had been pretty much pushed aside in favour of all these other dialects, but a lot of Evina's notes about woodwork had been written in Dalish, using Fereldan alphabet, so Gail knew a few technical terms and a lot of words, but had no idea how to pronounce or structure them in a spoken sentence.

Once he opened his eyes, Cervantes saw the ruins of Ostagar rising above him in all their glory. He had not noticed them last night, given the shape he was in, but with his mind now unclogged, if only temporarily, he glanced upon the aging Tevinter fortress with renewed interest.

The bridge, rising high above their camp, had been built from one side of the pass to the next using a combination of high-strength cement, strengthened with iron bars, and symmetrical arches, supported by square pillars taller than most mountain Gail had seen. Such a daring structure should have toppled at the first hit by a catapult, but the bridge was built in such a way that the blocks making up the pillar, growing thinner as they rose higher, could each have some room to wiggle back and forth, bending the iron rods within, but never breaking. Thus, the impact of siege weapon would be partly distributed down the bridge's pillars.

Add to that the towers and fort built straight into the mountainside, and no army would dare risk itself into the pass without a serious numerical advantage.

"Are you awake?" Spoke a soft voice to his left.

Isrill sat there, five paces from his cot, chewing on dried meat by last night's fire.

Gail got up and his aching muscles protested vividly, "Shit…" it was as though reality had suddenly come crashing back into his mind, that feeling of clarity not leaving him even though he'd fully awakened. The madness of his situation made him dizzy, so he sat down again. Break into the Tower of the Circle of Magi? What was he thinking?! His last heist had ended up with his house burning down and him nearly being burned at the stake! And there were only six Templars then, the tower would have hundreds of them!

But there they were, a whole Dalish clan, filling every available space in the ruins with their aravels, playing, working and running around amongst the stone and concrete. They must have come during the night, for there were hundreds of elves in Ostagar now, and, tired as he might have been, Gail surely would have noticed them the first time.

"You don't look so good…" Isrill commented, fetching some meat and a bottle of blueberry juice from an unseen container, behind the pillar. She knelt by his side and handed him the food, which Gail devoured like a starved bear, the thick berry juice staining his shirt and the uneven beard that now dotted his cheeks.

Isrill also began to doubt this whole plan. Gail had nothing of the valiant hero legends told of; he was dirty, stank of sweat and bad breath and displayed more fat than muscles. Knowing he had managed to free her from under the Templars' nose did nothing to ease the elf's doubt. To that list, she then added that he had terrible table manners.

Of course, Gail had eaten nothing in days now, having given what should have been his next meal to that Templar so he could steal his key. With that in mind, it is actually impressive that he did no vomit the sudden intake of food on his elven host.

Though he did feel quite sick, Isrill insisted he wash himself, put on some clean clothes and begin his training immediately, for they had only a month and a half before news of the mage's escape reached Orlais and the phylacteries be sent to Ferelden. "You have the mind," Isrill granted him, "but we will soon see if the body is that of a true infiltrator…"

Gail followed the elf in silence, remembering the wisest advice he'd ever received from his mother; _Just shut up, son._

The Dalish washed with very fine sand, so powdery it flowed like water, as Gail learned when he was brought to a elven woman that could easily have passed for a tall dwarven man. She told him to strip and, as he complied without daring to complain, shoved him into an outhouse-like cabin.

"Don't breathe, keep your eyes shut." Was all she told him. Once again, he did just as told, though he did take a moment to peek at the cabin's interior. There were holes overhead, at his feet and on every wall, their function made clear a second later when a powerful stream of sand was blown straight at him from every angle by a set of bellows.

The surprised yelp and string of curses that then emanated from the _shower_ brought smile to every elves within earshot.

Gail left the shower purple with anger, which only caused the smiles to turn into giggles. "Get away from me." He snapped at Isrill and the elven tailors swarming over him. They would have given him just any set of clothes lying around, but Cervantes, though small for a human, remained taller than most elves.

Naked as a newborn, Gail snatched a pile of dull gray linen fabric and a sewing kit, which he brought with him in a shallow crevice in the hillside.

No tailor by any stretch, he was still rather handy with a needle, a consequence of growing up alone. He swiftly made himself a tunic by cutting a hole in the center of a long piece of cloth, which he then folded in two and knitted both sides together, leaving just enough room at the top for his arms to fit through. Then, he took a longer band of lined, folded it in two so it had the same length as his lower body, and turned it into half-decent trousers the same way he had with the tunic. With the leftovers, he put together two sleeves, which he added to the tunic, turning it into a shirt that reached almost down to his knees, one he then added a hood to, before cutting it along the chest, because, for all his mathematical skills, Cervantes had failed to consider he might just not be able to fit into the outfit without taking his measurements first.

Fortunately, he had enough cloth left to make another tunic, which he wore under the shirt.

Since he had scissors on hand, Gail took that opportunity to cut off his hairs just as his mother had taught him; thick as the index finger on top, pinky finger on the side and as short as possible on the temples and over the neck.

It is a very painful experience, to shave oneself without grease or a good blade, but Cervantes was no idiot, he knew the elves would never respect him if he looked like some vagrant who'd wandered into their camp in a drunken haze, so he cut off his beard as well, leaving only some tenacious stubbles.

Only then did he feel confident enough to step out of his hiding spot. Isrill, who had patiently waited on the fallen pillar for him to get over himself, gave him the once over, just as she had the night prior, and lost her smug smile. Appearances are important, as the elf realized at that moment, anyone who says otherwise is merely too idealistic to face the truth.

The thief may not have been a handsome man by any standards, he was not outright ugly, well, not _anymore_, Isrill even thought he looked _decent._ Average would be the word, unremarkable… Perfect for a man who did not want any attention drawn to himself.

"Nice… Coat?" She complimented him, her tone making it obvious she hardly meant it.

"Trial and error." Growled the thief, "So, what do you want to teach me?"

She motioned for him to sit by her side and pulled a fetched a length of rope from her sack, "Climbing… But first; knots."

To Gail's dismay, she spent the next hour showing him different knots; some for trapping, some for climbing, a few for lassoing, most, however, served obscure purposes, being intended to restrain someone without hurting them, which made him wonder what the Dalish could possibly be needing so many different way to restrain a man for… This remarked earned him a slap on the forehead. "Focus!"

Isrill first gave him detailed instructions, then forced him to replicate every knot on his own, starting over whenever he got one wrong.

If anything, Cervantes learned fast and, after an hour and a half, they were ready to leave theory and move on to practice.

"You, what, want me to tie you up?" He joked, half hoping for a positive answer.

Isrill display a predatory grin, "Tell you what, if you succeed the next exercise, you will get to practice what I told you on me, but if you fail, then I'm hanging you to that bridge by the ankles and leave you there for the night."

The thief did not think twice. "Deal."

"Good, then here are the rules…" She pointed to the crumbling tower atop a cliff three hundred meters further, "Reach the top floor without ever entering the tower nor touching stone."

It took Gail a moment of observation to realize what she was asking him; the only way not to touch stone from here to there would be to climb the ruins. The cliffs, the ground, even the paths were all made of stone, but the old bridge and most of the ruins, like the pillar he sat on, were concrete.

He cast another glance at the bridge, this marvel of engineering now more of a pain in the arse than a wondrous sight… He turned back to Isrill and frowned, "You are a cruel woman."

To which she smile sweetly, handing him less than half the length of rope he would need to reach the bridge, "Don't be afraid, I will be right behind you, if you fall, I will catch you… You trust me, right?"

He shook his head vigorously, "Nope." And, before she could act offended, pushed himself up and ran along the length of the toppled pillar onto a still standing one. The edges of the block he grabbed had been gnawed by time and war, but his bare feet helped steady his grip. The next block ended two meters above, but there were enough cracks and crevices running along its side for Gail to laboriously pull himself up its length and onto its edge. The next pillar had not been so weathered and its face remained smooth on this side, so Gail moved past the corner, scratching his feet against the concrete, which left a pattern of footprints on this side as he moved on to the next.

There, a fist-wide crack split the block top to bottom, and spread to the next three. Its edges were too smooth to offer any kind of grip, let alone a point for him to anchor his rope.

"Slip your hand in, ball it into a fist, then pull and repeat until you reach your goal." Advised Isrill, from around the left corner.

He did as she said and, indeed, found that it offered a secure, if painful, grip. As he reached the next block, he looked down at Isrill and remarked, "Can you say one sentence without it being an innuendo?"

She climbed after him with ease, smiling as always, "I could, but it would not be as much fun, would it?"

His eyes lost their focus on the elf and he saw the ground, unbelievably far beneath. Fear caused his hands to grow sweaty, but it did not endanger him, as his wrists were doing all the lifting. "Yes… Fun… We are having… Such fun…" He turned back towards the bridge and focused only on reaching the top.

And he did! Fingers bloodied, feet mangled, muscles all but unusable, he sat on the bridge's railing and tried to catch his breath.

Isrill joined him without so much as a sweat, "Giving up?"

_Yes!_ "No." _…You idiot._

So they moved again, Isrill showing the way. Every ten paces along the balustrade, they were forced to climb over the remains of some statue or to jump across a collapsed section. One such section soon forced them to lasso onto a pedestal and swing themselves across.

Isrill did it with grace and speed. Gail required three throws to get the pedestal and slammed into the bridge so hard he went colour blind for half a minute.

Once they were off the bridge and into the maze of hollowed out husks of ancient buildings, things got less scary and, frankly, quite a bit more fun.

They ran, though Cervantes did so with a lot more care than Isrill, along irregular walls, leapt across what should have been a rooftop to land with joined feet on the remains of a blockade that rose from the ground by a few inches, then they ran along its length onto a smooth wall twice the height of a man. Isrill went straight through the only irregularity on its façade, an old window, while Gail nearly split his head open trying to do the same. He subsequently had to pull himself in one leg at a time and leap onto the opposite wall.

There might have been a city there once, or a large garrison… Either way, they crossed the distance between the tower and bridge in minutes, not once touching the ground, though, in Cervantes' case, more than once narrowly escaping serious injuries. His pickpocketing and burglary had made him quick and nimble, but they never procured him the physical conditioning such an exercise required.

Once they reached the tower, Gail felt his heart fall. The bridge and town had really been nothing but warm up for the real challenge, yet his already aching muscles were at their breaking point, his feet were numb and swollen and his fingers slippery with blood.

Isrill leapt from the shoulder of an old statue onto the tower's base, but Gail did not follow, instead sitting on the statue's head, shaking with exhaustion.

"Okay," he finally called, "I give up!"

In an instant, the elf was back by his side, looking way too proud of herself.

"Oh? Isn't that a shame…" The smugness lasted only a few seconds however. With many hours left until nightfall, they practiced archery together and Gail was glad to hear that he had the technique down pat. When given a Dalish short bow, way superior to his tired old hunting bow, his usually atrocious aim turned out to be decent enough for him to have a friendly competition with some elven hunters, which he ultimately lost.

After supper that night, eaten alone on the pillar, he idly hoped Isrill would forget their bet, but soon the sun began to vanish into the trees, and, coming stealthily from behind, she put on her predatory smile once more and wrapped her arms around the thief's shoulder. The elf rested her chin on Gail's hood and he sighed, looking at the length of rope in her hand. "Are you sure it's safe to spend so long upside down?" Whined the thief, which only widened the elf's smile.

"I don't know. All the more reason for you to learn escaping…"

With a sigh, he repeated his previous impression of her: "You are a cruel woman."


	5. What is True

**Apollo Wings: Will take care of that soon. Fun fact, though, Aveline uses Okay in DA2, when she wants to send a goat to Donnic... And that wasn't even the wackiest part of that scene xD**

The next morning brought a thick fog with it, rolling over the ruins from the Kocari Wilds on its way to the Southron Hills. In the aravel she shared with three other elves, Isrill awoke feeling the toll of her long imprisonment and acrobatics in the ruins, biting deep in her shoulders and thighs. She had expected Cervantes to be like all Shem, slow and clumsy, which he was, but not hopelessly so; it had taken some efforts on the elf's part to stay ahead of him. Maybe, just maybe, the thief could actually pull off that heist.

She stepped outside, squinting in the fog, and saw that Gail no longer hung from the bridge. She went to his cot, by the pillar, expecting to find him huddled under some thick furs, fast asleep. She found the cot empty.

Asking the cooks, who's set up shop under the bridge, only a few paces away, brought her nowhere. There had not been anyone hanging here that morning.

Worried, she set out deeper into the Dalish camp, into the maze of aravels, tents and tanning racks set up at on edge of the ruins, where stone and wilderness fought for dominance.

She searched the whole camp without ever seeing the slightest sign of the human thief, as though he'd just vanished in the night. Then, she understood; what could possibly keep him from running to the Templars and reporting all he'd learned in exchange for forgiveness?

Her hearth sunk at that realization, all blood draining from her face as she stood motionless for half a minute. Then she ran, straight for Keeper Athenril's aravel, slightly deeper into the wood than the others. A certain darkness hung over the clearing, despite abundant sunlight filtering through the canopy. The golden rays, vivid in the ruins, seemed dimmer here, as though invisible smoke somehow hindered them…

"Keeper!" She yelled, running straight into the aravel, "Keeper, we have to…"

There Gail sat, drinking tea and discussing mathematics with the elderly man named Athenril. Both turned from the roll of parchment they were arguing about and looked at Isrill as though she some mad woman crashing a fancy party.

"You…" She could not form a full sentence, too out of breath and confused to make any sense. "What… Why?"

Athenril shrugged at this confused gibberish and explained, "That is quite the scholar you have brought us this time, Isrill," he nodded at Gail, who seemed uneasy with the compliment, "I think this one actually has a chance…"

Her eyes darted from the keeper to Cervantes, looking out for any reaction at the elf's words, but he only sipped some more tea. "What did you tell him?" She then asked Athenril, blood having returned to her now flustered cheeks. Whether they were red out of embarrassment or anger, neither the keeper nor the thief could tell, as she hid her emotions well after that.

"Anything he asked about. No reason for us to be dishonest, child," Keeper Athenril got off his cushion and fetched another cup of tea, setting it down on the table before crossing his leg once more, beckoning the other elf over.

"No, but there are things he's not supposed to know…"

"No there aren't." Gail cut her off, setting his teacup down carefully before picking up a blank parchment roll, which he proceeded to scribble on with a piece of coal.

Isrill, even more flustered now, threw a glare at Athenril, seeking his support, but the old elf pretended no to see anything.

"I'm the judge of that…" She spoke, still doing her best not to lose her temper.

Gail shook his head, about to speak, but it was Athenril who put the elf back in her place, "Yes, that has worked wonderfully the _five_ other times…"

But Isrill would have none of it, "You don't get to criticize how I run this group anymore! The clans just left us to rot!"

Athenril did not raise his voice, in a stark contrast with Isrill's fiery speech, he spoke with the patience of an exasperated teacher, "Yes, that is precisely what we are doing right now, leaving you to rot, by letting you and a group of apostates we especially told you _not_ to rescue, travel with us, at the risk of our lives…"

She pointed to Gail, this time speaking in Dalish. He understood none of it, but gathered that it must have contained very few kind words…

Again, the keeper was calm and amiable in his answer, "That's all you, my girl, charge in headfirst, not seeing who or what you drag along… " He sighed, his shoulders heavy with melancholy, "There was a time when you trusted me, you used to seek my opinion on every decision you took. Ah, but you no longer need your old father's counsels, you have grown to be quite the astute strategist, if you think it is better this young man be kept in the dark, who am I to contradict you?"

The anger seemed to drain out of Isrill at those words; her shoulders relaxed, her cheeks lost their crimson tint and she even sipped on her father's tea. In the moment of silence that followed, Gail set down the charcoal stick and put his drawing on the table for all to see.

It was the Circle's Tower, a, accurate representation of its northern approach, with dimensions and building materials listed in hastily scribbled notes all over the parchment.

Isrill's brain did not immediately process how that drawing could be relevant, but, judging by Athenril's grin, it clearly was important.

"You have seen the tower before?" She asked the thief as he fetched another sheet of yellowish paper, stowed in a tubular receptacle over their heads.

"Nah…" He frowned at the fresh sheet, perfectly square in dimension, and decided to tilt it to the side. "Crucial Rule of architecture: Don't be overly creative, you don't get many tries if something goes wrong…" He jerked his thumb towards Ostagar's tower, "I spent all morning studying the Tevinter's techniques and they are no different. Knowing the number of floors, the thickness of the walls and the interval at which they build support beams, we can extrapolate on…"

Isrill raised a finger like a scolding mother, stopping him mid-sentence, "You can map a building you have never been to? What makes you think they did not modify it over the years?"

Cervantes shook his head at that, "Nothing, but unless they razed the tower and rebuild its entire infrastructure, then the staircases, walls and chimneys should all be in the same place… I am going to need your escaped mages to tell me everything they remember, so I can refine those maps, but even it the current state of things, it's better than going in blind."

He handed her another drawing, this one providing a cutaway view of the tower from the eastern approach. Trailing her fingers on the shaft she'd used to infiltrate the building only a week ago, she followed its dark outlines all the way down into the cellar, where it met with five more like it. There was one such shaft on every wall, rising in a diagonal line halfway up the tower, except for the fifth, which rose all the way to the top.

"How… How can you possibly know about those secret passages?" She asked, more suspicious than impressed.

Gail lifted her finger off the map to see what she meant, which actually caused him to giggle a bit, "Secret? Those are not secret passageways; they are sewers. That's where the ancient Tevinters threw their chamber pots…"

She quickly withdrew her hand, looking disturbed, and it took her companions a moment to understand.

"Isrill, did you crawl through centuries of human feces to enter that tower?" Went Athenril, smiling thinly.

The girl's face was an emotionless mask, like those porcelain dolls, when she answered, "Maybe." She said nothing for a moment, then added, "Why do they lead outside?"

Gail shrugged, "Helps with the smell. Plus, when it rains, the shafts clean themselves."

"What about intruders?"

He pointed to the room where all shafts came together, "I doubt they will have a guard in that room, but there is only one staircase leading out, no reason they can't lock it up and post some men there."

Isrill nodded, "That is exactly what they did… What do you suggest then?"

The question hit him with the force of an arrow to the chest, "You can't honestly expect me to have a plan just from some guesswork and drawings!"

"I guess it was too much to ask for…" She sighed, "Well, today I'm teaching you how to hunt; take a shower and steal yourself a decent bow, you've got twenty minutes."

He mocked a templar salute and got up, "Yes ma'am."

As the thief left his aravel, Athenril's amiable attitude melted away, to Isrill's surprise. He kept quiet, using his link to the fade to confirm the boy was not eavesdropping on them before talking, "He's dangerous," was how the keeper voiced his concerns, "are you sure you can control him?"

Isrill frowned, "How is he dangerous? Should I sleep with a dagger under my pillow?"

The keeper seemed more annoyed than anything at that question, "A cutthroat would be easy, predictable. This child is not a killer, but he is too intelligent to be predictable… Answer my question; can you keep him under control?"

But Isrill, having been away from her clan for quite some time, failed to understand what he father meant. Gail had indeed proved himself to be quite the scholar and a fast learner, but he was a naïve, borderline stupid, young man, foolish enough to think he had a handle on the situation. She told Athenril how she felt about the thief and he just shook his head.

"Be careful, my dear, by the time this is over, that may no longer be true, and I fear you may well create something that is beyond your power to control…"

Isrill thought back to the boy's unease at her flirting, the other night, and smiled, "Let me worry about that."

Gail came back, carrying a Dalish bow and scabbard full of mismatched arrows, probably stolen from multiple hunters. His clothes, the ones he'd brought with him from Lothering, were now clean, if still a bit wet and now permanently stained varying shades of grey and brown, which made for decent enough camouflage.

Isrill made no comment on the thief's attire, instead dragging him off straight into the woods. Gail had expected some walking, a lot of sneaking and, soon enough, to return with a dead deer slung over his shoulder. The truth of hunting made itself known soon enough; mosquitos, ankle pains from the uneven terrain and cobwebs, cobwebs everywhere in their path, invisible right up until they got stuck in his face.

Sneaking around in these conditions proved impossible. He rubbed his nose and eyes to remove the length of invisible silk stuck there, only to trip on some roots, a conveniently place rock or his own bloody foot.

They had been at it for an hour when Isrill grew impatient. "How can you hope to feel the ground through an inch of soles?" She hissed, glaring at his shoes. She'd sent them to be either washed or_ burned_ with the rest of his old clothes, the day before, but Cervantes being a thief, he had no trouble getting his things back and once again wore his clownish -to an elf- footwear.

Without a word, Gail undid his laces, pulled his feet out of the too-small shoes and tied them together around his waist, using them as _smelly_ extra pockets. From this moment onward, he followed Isrill wearing only his socks, every pebble causing him to yelp in surprise, every muddy pond pulling his smooth skin in a cold embrace and every rock becoming as slippery as the ice of lake Callenhad in winter. He soon resolved to remove his socks as well, which caused Isrill to glance at his feet in curiosity.

She said nothing, but glanced back again a minute later, and again every five minutes for half an hour.

Eventually, Gail had enough and asked her, "What? They are not clean enough to your taste? You're the one that walks everywhere barefoot!"

"No," she spoke, frowning, "it's just… Is that hair? Do Shemlens have hairs on their feet?"

Cervantes looked down, "I guess… Men do, anyhow… Not elves?"

That seemed to puzzle her greatly, "No… Why would you need hairs anywhere but on your head?"

"You ask me like I voluntarily chose to have body hairs! It just grows once we hit puberty, nobody ever asked me if I wanted them…"

"Do they… Grow? Like the hairs on your head?"

He thought about it. He'd seen old men with rather impressive manes in all the wrong places, but never gave it much thought, "Maker, I hope not…"

Isrill, disturbed by what she had learned, returned to tracking without another word.

The elf's conception of teaching revolved around _watch and learn or try and die_. A good thing, given Gail's autodidact nature. It would be fair to say the thief would not have responded well to traditional teaching methods. He might even have been unwilling to follow someone around for so long if that someone did not have such… Hypnotically firm _upper thighs._

But his attention was not focused on Isrill's buttocks the whole time, not even half the time, in fact, as Gail soon discovered himself a phobia, a fear of spiders, to be precise, and one of these cobwebs he ran into eventually turned out to be _inhabited_ by a spider with legs thick as his fingers and twice as long, as well as a pulsing abdomen covered in short black hairs.

Gail swept the spider from his face faster than his mind registered what was happening. The thing landed on a tree, but not before sticking a web to Cervantes' left cheek and, before the spider had a chance to do anything else, Gail drew his bow, notched an arrow and impaled the spider at point blank, the resounding _Tchock! _ Causing Isrill to ready her own weapon and look at their surroundings, searching for attackers. After a moment, she saw Gail's arrow and the twitching arachnid impaled on it.

"Congratulations," went the elf, "you just learned quick-drawing!"

Cervantes ripped the web from his face and opted against recovering that arrow.

From that moment onward, Gail became exceptionally skilled at spotting the glitter of spider webs in the sun and recognizing their effect on the environment; bent branches, dead insects on the ground, oddly twisted leafs. He understood that just because you don't see something, it doesn't mean you can't know it's there. Everything leaves traces.

Tracking remained a hopeless exercise to him, however, as he could not tell the difference between tracks and a dried stream.

They found many animals; deer, pheasants, hares and goats, but getting close enough to shoot them proved to be quite the challenge. When his bare feet did not break some twigs, his knees rubbed together or his bow creaked, causing the prey to dart off never to be seen again.

Ten hours in, Gail had watched the stubby tails of two deer vanish in the wood, chased three hares to their burrows, traumatised a flock of pheasants for life with terribly aimed arrows and been all but taunted by a white goat which had vanished atop a rocky piton, only to charge at the hunter when he tried to climb after it.

"Night is coming." he remarked to his guide, once he had recovered from the fall, "Shouldn't we head back to camp?"

Isrill shrugged, "They will catch up to us eventually. We can find a place to camp for the night, but I think we should catch diner first, don't you?"


	6. Can be Disproved

**A/N: Well, you gotta understand, they had to work with completely new mechanics, a story that would allow for any decisions the player took in Origins. Considering they also had to deal with executive meddling, I think they did a decent enough job... Anyhow, I try to keep my stories secluded from the source's plot, as much as possible, not to anger fans when my OCs inevitably either develop a friendship or rivalry with their favourite character. **

He held his bow horizontally, an arrow already squeezed between the grip and his index finger. Thirty meters further, through the morning fog, a lone rabbit perked its ears in alarm. It seemed about to bolt, but Gail, who's footsteps made all the ruckus of a feather in the wind, did not stop moving, ducking under some low branches, from where he would have a clear shot. After a moment, however, the bunny lowered its guard and, in search of food, bounded further to the left, out of Cervantes' field of view.

Five days spent eating nothing but mushrooms and roots, five days of frustration and mistakes, had taught him to stay well away from his prey if he could help it. The closer you are, the more things can go wrong, so he carefully let go of his bowstring to drag himself onto a fallen log, still propped against a maple tree.

He had to turn his back to the rabbit as he crept up the log and onto a sturdy branch, but this new vantage point gave him a direct line of sight on the tiny creature, its dirty fur blending in with the dead leafs on the ground.

The bow made no sound at all as Gail readied himself for the shot. He corrected the width of a broad head over his target and…

_Andraste's flaming sword, what is _that?!

The rabbit fled without so much as seeking the answer. A small wretched creature, clutching a crudely built bow, carefully bowed under the branches, those same ones Gail had just crossed. From up in his tree, Cervantes was out of sight and the small creature hissed in annoyance, looking around for something.

_It's tracking me!_ Gail realized, slowly letting the bow return to its original shape, an act that required a lot of effort to perform silently. The creature looked like a mutilated dwarf, stripped of its nose and lips and given predatory teeth. Its armour, crude iron wrapped in _skin, _not leather, glided silently as it moved past the fallen log and so close to Gail's tree he could smell the stench of spoiled meat that followed it.

Gail knew about the Darkspawns, but, having never seen one, did not recognize the thing for what it was. He decided to kill it and was about to release an arrow in the back of its head when another virtually identical creature followed the first. Then another, and another, so on until there were seven stocky little corrupted dwarves making their ways through the trees.

_Violence is overrated anyway._ Cervantes then decided, opting to stay there and wait until the things were well out of earshot to return to Isrill.

Only another four of them, these human sized, but just as disfigured, soon followed and, behind them, a horned monstrosity, looking like a Qunari gone horribly wrong, squeeze through the trees with surprising nimbleness, though its heavy strides shook the ground. The thing was so tall it only had to look up to be face to face with Gail. With that in mind, he took the risk of shifting position to a branch on the other side of the tree, out of sight.

Three days ago, he would have been unable to navigate through the thick foliage without a sound… Maker, ten seconds ago, he likely would not have succeeded either, but adrenaline and sheer terror granted him preternatural strength and agility. He moved with grace, silent as a shadow, and watched what he know knew to be a Darkspawn warband stroll by his tree.

Reaching to the back of his pants and slinging his bow in one fluid motion that left him in danger of being blown off the branch by the slightest gush of wind, Gail pulled out the tailor scissors he'd stolen on his first day with the Dalish. The things were curved like a cat's claw, probably to better cut fabric laid on a flat surface. Carefully, he unscrewed the two parts and earned a pair of curved daggers. He kept one, holding it in a reverse grip, his index finger filling the loop, blade pointing away from his fist, and sheathed the other in one of the shoes on his waist.

A fight with a Darkspawn would not end well for him; with twelve, it would end so fast Gail doubted it'd have any time to start at all, but it felt good not be completely helpless.

"Hey, Gail! Where are you?!" Isrill, less than fifty meters ahead. He could see hints of her in the distance, moving through the trees, calling his name, but the Darkspawns did not. They heard, however, and immediately spread out to surround the lone elf.

One of the things _chuckled _as it moved under Cervantes' tree and a chill ran up his spine at the pure evil contained in that laugh.

_Small ones won't be a problem to a mage,_ he thought, letting himself drop silently from the branch, at spitting distance behind the now very quiet ogre, _But fat boy here needs to take a hike._

Rising fully, he stretched his legs for a moment, sheathed his shiv and drew his bow. That would make for one sodding hard to believe story, one day.

"Isrill!" He roared, causing the ogre to jump slightly in surprise, "_Darkspawns_!" The Ogre turned around almost lazily, it's ape-like mouth quivering in rage, baring unbelievably sharp teeth, like dozens of daggers had been jammed haphazardly hilt-first into the ogre's gums.

Gail notched an arrow, pulled the string and shot in one fluid motion. The broad head grazed the ogre's forehead and the woobling shaft slapped it in the horns, the whole arrow quickly vanishing into the trees.

_Accuracy is like friends, _Gail thought, spinning on his heels to dash madly through the foliage, a roaring monstrosity breaking down trees and shaking the earth as it thundered after him, _it's right there with you right up until you're staring down a _giant sodding oxman!

He hopped between a pair of saplings, joined at the base in a V shape, and glanced back to see the ogre uproot them in a backhand swipe.

That moment of inattention almost caused him to run headfirst into a massive oak. Instead, his adrenaline-fueled muscles sent him spinning sideway and he danced around the tree instead, his back rasping against the bark.

To him, this was an easy motion, but the ogre took almost ten seconds to try and smack the oak away before it realized it had to go around. _The fruit never falls far from the tree_. That old saying proved true, as many more oak trees grew in this area, thick and bristling with low hanging branches that would provide a skilled climber with quite the playground.

Gail kept running straight for the neared tree, growing close enough to the first for their branches to be intertwined in places. The bark scorched the sole of his feet, ripped skin from his palms, but he climbed well out of reach within seconds and, with a feet and his back on parallel branches, holding himself up, he drew his bow again to release a trio of well-aimed arrows into the ogre.

The arrows smacked into the darkspawn's chest in a neat row, but just stuck there, barely piercing the skin. Cervantes then crept along a branch at his feet and back onto the first oak tree, just as the ogre began ramming itself into his tree.

The thief did a quick inventory, patting himself down for anything useful. Beyond the shivs, bow and arrows, he carried only about forty meters of rope…

The ogre, having looked up, realized its prey was gone and went berserk, snapping branches bigger than Gail's chest like they were twigs, punching dents directly into the oak's trunk and stomping the ground so hard leafs fell from nearby trees. In the morning light, these falling leaves and the fog that still hung over the forest gave the whole scene an unreal feeling, as though it was just a very detailed painting in some merchant's house.

Cervantes remained hidden in the shadows, thinking hard as the ogre stomped around, sniffing the air in search of its victim.

Apart from the oaks, a lot of birch trees dotted the area, their white bark clashing against all the green and brown, yet, at the same time, blending in with the fog. One of these, thirteen meters to the right, stood out in that it was taller and thinner than most other of its kind.

Gail tried to estimate the tree's height, as well as the tensile strength of the wood and its elasticity from what he'd seen in his mother's notes. It was all rough estimations, but it hatched to beginning of a plan in the thief's mind.

He climbed off the oak with care, the ogre roaring at the woods on his left as sounds of battle echoed from that direction. Isrill had not yet disposed of the darkspawns.

Gail crept in the opposite direction, pulling the rolled up rope from around his chest to tie it into a lasso. Once he reached the birch tree, the thief threw the lasso at its top; it took him three tries, but he eventually got the rope solidly wrapped around its trunk.

Unstringing the bow was the trickiest part of this operation; he had to put his feet between the string and limbs, prop the bow between his legs and hold it bent by leaning on it as, with his free hand, he pulled the string free, slowly letting the bow straighten itself and taking great care so it would make no sound in doing so.

Praying to the Maker his calculations would be correct, he then wrapped the rope once around the bow and tied its other end to the trunk of a thick birch, five steps away.

With the rope now hung between the two trees and his bow tangled in it, Gail took a hold of the weapon's limbs and pulled it into a full rotation, wrapping more of the rope and tightening it with every spin. Soon, the thin tree began bending backward, the bow becoming harder and harder to pull. After every successful rotation, Gail would twist it sideway so that one of the limbs, pressed against the rope, kept the bow from uncurling prematurely.

Though it seemed to take forever, Gail had the tree's tip at his feet in less than a minute. The ogre had all not given up by then, however; it shook every tree, crushed bushes and kept its eyes on the canopy at all time, which was the only thing that kept it from noticing Gail as it walked right past him. Of course, he did not remain out in the open, hiding amongst the bent birch's foliage until the monster had moved on.

This close up view turned Gail's bones to cotton and sent a chill down his spine that ended rather painfully in his toes, before climbing back up to drain all blood from his face. The feeling of surrealism was gone now; Gail saw his foe in all its glory and realized how futile his efforts to topple it were. The birch seemed tiny now, insignificant compared to the raw destructive power of the ogre. The thief almost gave up, deciding to use this opportunity to run away… Almost, but then, the ogre looked to the left again, where Isrill still fought off the darkspawns, and it _chuckled_, just as the disfigured dwarf had.

Blood return to Gail's face in an instant, his bones now more stone than cotton. Fear still clutched his heart, but a more powerful emotion usurped its domination; rage.

Gail counted on his fingers, now able to accurately judge the ogre's height, and took four careful steps along the bent tree. Using the bowstring, which he cut into four strings, the thief attached clusters of arrows in strategic locations.

_This is a terrible plan_, he warned himself, going back to the bow, _there are easier ways to commit suicide…_

"Hey, over here!" He barked at the ogre, who'd once again wandered near him. It came from the ideal direction, directly in front of him, and, in its frustration, charged in without pause, in a straight line that would take it directly above the thief's trap.

_Yeah, if it makes it _over _that tree, I won't have time to beat myself over my terrible timing…_

His timing was flawless; he cut the rope a bit earlier than he'd intended, but the birch, snapping back to its original position in a blur of white and green, impaled the ogre's neck with a branch two meters higher than expected. It did not slow the beast down, but the birch bounced off and, when it came back, the arrows dug themselves all the way into the ogre's skull through its eyeballs.

The thing's deafening roar echoed through the trees long after it had abruptly stopped and, for a moment, Gail thought his trap had failed, as the ogre still stood, limp and motionless, but on its feet nonetheless.

Only when the thief moved to take a closer look did he see that the birch's branches, stabbed into the darkspawn's skin, from head to toes, were all that held it up.

He tried to think of something witty to say, or something deep, at the very least, like those heroes of legends, but could not think of anything, so he spat on the ground and, leaving his now useless bow behind, headed back toward Isrill and the darkspawns.


End file.
